A Not So Frugal Week - 2nd Week of August

I had another productive, but not really frugal week.

The biggest accomplishment for me was making soap. Finally I overcame the fear of lye and made soap.

On Monday I received free moringa cuttings, moringa leaves and fig cuttings from a member of a regional Facebook gardening group. I planted the cuttings in pots right away, and sautéed moringa leaves with katuk (sauropus androgynous or star gooseberry), kale, and hummingbird leaves (Sesbania grandiflora or Katurumurunga in Sinhalese) picked from the garden.

Whenever I gather edible leaves from the garden, I think of my mom. She likes to make greens for at least one meal every day. When she doesn't have store bought greens, she would go to the garden and pick several types of greens to make a mixed greens dish.

Moringa leaves.

I didn't buy anything until Yesterday (Saturday). Yesterday I went to a flea market in another town. I like this flea market because most vendors are Vietnamese and they sell so many exotic fruits, vegetables and plants. I don't go there often because it's a bit far away. My last visit to the flea market was in last November.

This time I didn't buy many things. It was a rainy day (I should have checked the weather forecast!), so most vendors were not there. I bought a Neem plant (azadirachta indica), a Pandan plant(Screwpine, pandanus amaryllifolius ) and several vegetables. Altogether I spent approximately $20.

Neem (left) and Pandan (right).

On the way back I stopped at Sam's Club to buy prunes and spent $59.36. I bought a box of mini croissants, peaches and two boxes of cereal. I didn't go to the store at all until Saturday and then of course I went over budget by $62. I will have to adjust next month's grocery budget by that amount.

It was lunch time when I came home. I had prepared two pizzas in the morning. So I put them in the oven and within 15 minutes had hot pizza for lunch.

I made the pizzas using store bought flat bread. I like these because they are thinner than regular pizza. I added tomato, olives, anchovy, onions and mozzarella cheese and added kale and spinach to one pizza. 

Oven ready pizza.

Mini croissants went in to the freezer. I like buying them in bulk and freezing. Because I'm going back to work soon, I'm making extra food to freeze.

Today I had to go to Home Depot to buy a piece of wood for the shutter project. The project is going slowly because my friend who does most of the work has been busy. While at Home Depot I bought two bags of garden soil and a packet of organic mustard seeds. With these impulse purchases the total bill was a little over $20. I must stop buying things that are not on the list !

There are two more weeks left in the month and I have already spent 60% of the monthly income.  I've got to be more frugal.

Results of this week's to-do list:

1) prepare recently bought plantation shutters to fit the windows of the second bedroom. - Continue 2) keep searching for a sofa.- Continue

3) make soap.  Done!

4) exercise. - Continue

5) continue 7 hours of sleep. - This didn't go well. Because I'm going back to work soon, I have to get back to a proper sleeping schedule.

Tasks for the 3rd week of August:

1) continue working on plantation shutters.

2) Plant Neem and Pandan.

3) Cut three curtain panels.

4) Start a new book, The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion.

5) Gather documents required for a work project.

6) exercise.

7) sleep 7 hours.

I removed sofa search from the list because it's not something I am going to forget. However I will keep exercise and 7 hour sleep on the list just to motivate myself. Ha!

How was your week? Hope you all had a wonderful week.


XX
Nil